Where Are We Going?

by David Lloyd George

"It is not the Turkish people—it is the Ottoman Government that has drawn the sword, and which, I venture to predict, will perish by the sword. It is they and not we who have rung the death-knell of Ottoman dominion, not only in Europe but in Asia. With their disappearance will disappear as I, at least, hope and believe, the blight which for generations past has withered some of the fairest regions of the earth."

In pursuance of the policy thus declared by the British Premier on behalf of the Allies a series of Agreements was entered into in the early months of 1915 between France, Russia, and ourselves, by which the greater part of Turkey, with its conglomerate population, was to be partitioned at the end of the War. Cilicia and Syria were allocated to France; Mesopotamia to Britain; Armenia and Constantinople to Russia. Palestine was to be placed under the joint control of Britain and France. Arabia was to be declared independent and a territory carved largely out of the desert—but including some famous cities of the East, Damascus, Homs and Aleppo—was to be constituted into a new Arab State, partly under the protection of France and partly of Britain. Smyrna and its precincts were to be allotted to Greece if she joined her forces with those of the Allies in the war. The Straits were to be demilitarised and garrisoned. When Italy came into the war later on in 1915, it was stipulated that in the event of the partition of Turkey being carried out in pursuance of these agreements, territories in Southern Anatolia should be assigned to Italy for development.

What was the justification for breaking up the Turkish Empire? The portions to be cut out of Turkey have a population the majority of which is non-Turkish. Cilicia and Southern Anatolia might constitute a possible exception. In these territories massacres and misgovernment had perhaps succeeded at last in turning the balance in favour of the Turk. But in the main the distributed regions were being cultivated and developed before the war by a population which was Western and not Turanian in its origin and outlook. This population represented the original inhabitants of the soil.

The experiences, more especially of the past century, had demonstrated clearly that the Turk could no longer be entrusted with the property, the honour, or the lives of any Christian race within his dominions. Whole communities of Armenians had been massacred under circumstances of the most appalling cruelty in lands which their ancestors had occupied since the dawn of history. And even after the war began 700,000 of these wretched people had been done to death by these savages, to whom, it must be remembered, the Great Powers so ostentatiously proffered the hand of friendship at the first Lausanne conference. Even while the conference was in session, and the handshaking was going on, the Turks were torturing to death scores of thousands of young Greeks whom they deported into the interior. As "a precautionary measure" 150,000 Greeks of military age, of whom 30,000 were military prisoners, were last year driven inland to the mountains of Anatolia. On the way they were stripped of their clothes, and in this condition were herded across the icy mountains. It is not surprising that when an agreement was arrived at for the exchange of military prisoners, the Turks found the greatest difficulty in producing 11,000, and of the total 150,000 it is estimated that two-thirds perished. The Allied Powers had every good reason for determining, as they hoped for all time, that this barbarian should cease to shock the world by repeated exhibitions of savagery against helpless and unarmed people committed to his charge by a cruel fate.

Apart from these atrocities the fact that great tracts of country, once the most fertile and populous in the world, have been reduced by Turkish misrule and neglect to a condition which is indistinguishable from the wilderness, alone proves that the Turk is a blight and a curse wherever he pitches his tent, and that he ought in the interests of humanity to be treated as such. When a race, which has no title to its lands other than conquest, so mismanages the territories it holds by violence as to deprive the world of an essential contribution to its well-being, the nations have a right—nay, a duty—to intervene in order to restore these devastated areas to civilisation. This same duty constitutes the reason and justification for the white settlers of America overriding the prior claims of the Indian to the prairies and forests of the great West.

On the shores of the Mediterranean are two races with a surplus population of hard-working, intelligent cultivators, both of them belonging to countries which had themselves in the past been responsible for the government of the doomed lands covered by the Turkish Empire. Greece and Italy could claim that under their rule this vast territory throve and prospered mightily. They now pour their overflow of population into lands far away from the motherland. Yet they are essentially Mediterranean peoples. The history of the Mediterranean will for ever be associated with their achievements on its shores and its waters. The derelict wastes of Asia Minor need them. Valleys formerly crowded with tillers are now practically abandoned to the desert weeds. Irrigation has been destroyed or neglected. The Italian engineers are amongst the best in the world, and once they were introduced into Asia Minor would make cultivation again possible. There is plenty of scope in the deserts of Anatolia for both Italian and Greek. I was hoping for a peace that would set them both working. Had such a settlement been attained, a generation hence would have witnessed gardens thronging with happy men, women, and children, where now you have a wilderness across which men, women, and children are periodically hunted down into nameless horror.

Yet another reason for the Allied decision was the bitter resentment that existed at the ingratitude displayed by the Turk towards Britain and France. They were naturally indignant that he should have joined their foes and slammed the gate of the Dardanelles in their face, and by that means complicated and prolonged their campaign and added enormously to their burdens, their losses, and their dangers. But he had not the thankfulness even of the beast of prey in the legend towards the man who had cured his wounded limb. France and Britain had many a time extracted the thorn from the Turkish paw when he was limping along in impotent misery. They had done more. They had often saved the life of that Empire when the Russian bear was on the point of crushing it out of existence; and yet without provocation, without even a quarrel, he had betrayed them to their enemies.

I have set out shortly what the war policy of the Allies was in reference to Turkey. The Treaty of Sèvres considerably modified that policy in many vital aspects. By that Treaty, Constantinople, Cilicia, and Southern Anatolia were left to the Turk; Armenia was created into an independent State. There were many objections which could be raised to the original proposals of 1915, as it might be argued that they contemplated handing over in Cilicia and Southern Anatolia populations which in the main were Turkish and Moslem to Christian rulers. But in substance the modified plan of Sèvres was sound, and if carried out would have conduced to the well-being of the millions to be liberated by its terms for ever from Turkish rule. The world at large also would have benefited by the opportunity afforded to the industrious and intelligent Armenian and Greek populations of Turkey to renew the fertility of this land, once so bountiful in its gifts, thus enriching man's store of good things. The barbarian invasion which withered that fertility was pushed back into the interior by the Treaty of Sèvres. The Treaty of Lausanne has extended and perpetuated its sway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. I have explained the why and wherefore of Sèvres. But why Lausanne? It is a long and painful story—a compound of shortsightedness, disloyalty, selfishness, and pusillanimity amongst nations and their statesmen. And more than all, Fate happened to be in its grimmest mood when dealing with this problem. The Russian Revolution eliminated that great country from the solution of the problem on the lines of protection for the oppressed races of Turkey, and instead cast its might on the side of the oppressor. President Wilson was inclined to recommend that the United States of America should undertake the mandate for the Armenians. Had he succeeded, what a different story would now have been told! What a different story the generations to come would also tell! But his health broke down at the vital moment and America would have none of his humanitarian schemes. Then came the departure of Sonnino from the Quirinal. With him went for a momentous while the old dreams of Italian colonisation, which in the past had done so much to spread civilisation in three continents. His successors were homelier men. I have still my doubts as to whether they served Italy best by the less adventurous and more domesticated policy they pursued. The future may decide that issue. But whatever the decision, the time for action passed away, and unless and until there is another break up in Turkey, the chance Italy has lost since 1919 will not be recovered. Will it ever come back?